BY CHANCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does by chance mean? 

• BY CHANCE (adverb)
  The adverb BY CHANCE has 3 senses:

1. through chance

2. by accident

3. without advance planning

  Familiarity information: BY CHANCE used as an adverb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BY CHANCE (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Through chance

Synonyms:

by chance; perchance

Context example:

To sleep, perchance to dream...

Domain usage:

archaicism; archaism (the use of an archaic expression)

Sense 2

Meaning:

By accident

Synonyms:

by chance; by luck; haply

Context example:

betrayed by a word haply overheard

Sense 3

Meaning:

Without advance planning

Synonyms:

accidentally; by chance; circumstantially; unexpectedly

Context example:

they met accidentally

 Context examples 

And none of your people had by chance been to see you?

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I heard it yesterday by chance, and was coming to you on purpose to enquire farther about it.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

"And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land," said Mr. Morris.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"Most pigments are discovered by chance," Subramanian said.

(Chemists find path to 'new blue' in meteorite minerals, National Science Foundation)

Cancer that occurs in families more often than would be expected by chance.

(Familial cancer, NCI Dictionary)

A measure of the probability that a result happened by chance.

(P-value, NCI Thesaurus)

A clinical trial in which the participants are not assigned by chance to different treatment groups.

(Nonrandomized clinical trial, NCI Dictionary)

Where alleles (DNA markers) occur together more often than can be accounted for by chance because of their physical proximity on a chromosome.

(Linkage Disequilibrium, NCI Dictionary)

I could only hope to do so by chance.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

On the other hand, it seemed an unthinkable coincidence that a man should dare to enter the room, and that by chance on that very day the papers were on the table.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)